‘Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Married’

“Whatever you do, don’t get married,” a joke I’ve heard plenty of before getting married said by too many people to count. Yet, there is at least a little bit of truth to every joke, isn’t there?

I mean, that’s why comedic journalists … news comedians … comedians who comment on current events using satire — whatever you want to call them, they’ve grown to be quite popular. I’m not talking about “The Onion” style of satirical news. The other type would be like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Trevor Noah.

What’s made them popular is their particular reactions and sarcastic remarks pointing out hypocrisy as it comes. I admit to watching shows like this pretty often, almost daily. I don’t rely solely on them for news, though staying to date with current events and understanding them definitely solidifies their humoristic arguments.

At any rate, I’ve learned that jokes have truth to what’s said. The greatest example of this is “roasting,” where people purposefully try to be mean with their jokes directed specifically at something or someone. That’s not to be confused with “trolling,” people purposefully pushing your buttons just to get a rise out of you.

Roasting is still trendy. While popularized by celebrity roastings of Charlie Sheen, Flavor Flav, and Rozanne Barr, people have been doing it for years, but maybe not previously having a word for it to summarize the particular action. Social media is the newest platform for this including various forums.

You’ll post a picture of yourself with the words “roast me” either written on paper accompanying you while taking a photo or as a caption, to start. The picture doesn’t have any particular requirements. If you want to have a blank expression you can, or you can make a weird face — you can be doing anything you want with anything you want, the particular photo doesn’t matter.

The outcome is usually hilarious for everyone, depending on how fragile the roastee is to the roasters. What makes this funny is how creatively descriptive the truth is told. Some statements are overly cruel at times while other statements pull their punches, it all depends on who is being roasted and who is roasting.

Not even a full month in of being married, and yet I found myself using “whatever you do, don’t get married.” Context is key when it comes to telling any joke. It was about washing your hands after committing to someone. When you wash your hands, do you take your ring off or do you wash with it on? I do both (adjusting to washing my hands with it on), but I prefer to take it off because I need to dry underneath the ring and take it off anyways.

What a pain, though … whatever you do, don’t get married (otherwise you’ll have to deal with the dilemma of washing your hands with the ring on or taking it off first). The sarcasm feels obvious considering how ridiculous it would be to decide not to marry someone only because “you’ll have to wash your hands with the ring.” There’s only so many times you can tell a joke before you’re just “beating a dead horse,” how you say.

It makes me wonder how much truth to the joke there is. The truth in my joke is in its sarcasm, telling it as if it were a serious statement without actually meaning it. While I’ve heard some that were of the same degree, I’ve heard a few that made me wonder if it was an attempt to reach out, as if it were actual advice disguised by humor should anyone catch on.

“Whatever you do, don’t get married” jokes to engaged couples is hardly good advice, so it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Though it makes you wonder if someone actually believes that. Again, it depends on the context of the joke. I mean, I’ve heard of some pretty unreasonable reasons for getting married, so it’s not too farfetched to think that there are people petty enough to divorce for equally unreasonable reasons.

It’s not like I’m saying not to tell these jokes, rather that you might be suggesting divorce for yourself if you’re not careful. While reasons for divorce are high in variety, I just simply CAN’T imagine divorcing my wife in the least. It feels like there are too many people who haven’t taken marriage seriously or had some misconception of what marriage is supposed to mean. That may not be the case for every marriage, but then why get married in the first place?

I’m not looking to place blame anywhere, but just to question the philosophy behind marriage and divorce. Marriage by definition is a lifetime commitment.

Though I’m green in the thumbs to the married life, I feel so solid in my relationship with my wife that it serves as my “ground to stand on” when I have advice. Whatever you do, don’t get married … until you’ve learned how to love yourself. Whatever you do, don’t get married … until you’ve learned to hold yourself accountable (self-discipline). That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve love, just that you’re going to be responsible not only for just yourself anymore.

You take on her troubles and she/he takes on yours. You succeed and fail together, which could be worse because you’re at least doing it with someone. That’s only one part of being in love with someone, or love in general. Love is realizing you haven’t actually been alone at all. We’re social creatures, no matter how extroverted or introverted you might be. The proof in that is our progress, every single day we wake up and are alive.

Love is construed as this fleeting feeling, as if it’s the most painful thing. It’s construed as this feeling that only two people can have for each other. Love is not some fairytale, nor is it a fleeting feeling. I’d even argue that love isn’t really painful, though best left for another column.

To love also means to forgive. To love also means to be kind. Love takes hard work, however, and there certainly isn’t any shortcut. Love is endurance, love is strength, love is the power inside you never knew existed. Love also means letting go sometimes.

What’s frustrating for me is if “marriage” means “lifetime commitment,” then why make a decision like that if you’re not committed to begin with? It’s not without a leap of faith, because divorce is almost an anomaly as if it could happen to anyone (though I don’t believe that personally). This isn’t to personally attack anyone and sincere condolences for those going through a divorce (because sometimes that is the right decision, that’s not a choice for me to make for someone else), but I just simply can’t imagine going through a divorce with my wife. I made the decision to marry her fully aware of the decision I was making, which is what makes it a special marriage for us.

So whatever you do, get married … or don’t get married, I’m not your dad. Just make sure you know what you’re in for. Make sure you’ve understood love as an emotion and as a philosophy. Make sure you’ve gained control of your childish impulses while remaining a child at heart. Make sure you put in a lot of work on yourself so you can be strong for them and to develop admirable characteristics (for example, what significant other doesn’t like for their partner to be considerate? Work on your weaknesses). Make sure to forgive yourself when you make a mistake so that you might learn to forgive your S.O. when they make a mistake.